(Nickel Comics 003, 1940) Spoilers for the end of this writeup: the Tenement Firebug is that most common of comic book villains, the property owner who burns down their own buildings for the insurance money and/or redevelopment. Ordinarily such a foe would be a regular guy with some hirelings and maybe a mask, but since he was set up as a foil to magic guy Warlock the Wizard the Tenament Firebug has been beefed up slightly. First off is his…
(Nickel Comics 001-003, 1940) A pretty regular “business guy branches out into costumed villainy” villain, Blackmask is distinguished by a) being Bulletman’s first foe, b) his very 90s name and c) lasting 3 whole issues while punching well above his weight class.
(Mystery Men Comics 015, 1940) Yet another crypto-Nazi spy/saboteur with a skull face operating in the US, but this one has an electron-gun! SKULL SCORE: 5/5 full skull; full marks.
(Mystery Men Comics 015, 1940) Yet another crypto-Nazi spy/saboteur with a skull face operating in the US, but this one has an electron-gun! SKULL SCORE: 5/5 full skull; full marks.
(Mystery Men Comics 014, 1940) Once more we meet a Skull, and this time he’s a supposed-to-be-a-Nazi-but-it’s-1940-so-we-won’t-actually-say-it who spends his time bombing bridges in the Blue Beetle’s eventually-just-going-to-be-New-York-City-but-we’re-still-pretending-it-isn’t-for-some-reason. SKULL SCORE: 2/5 Pretty skully for an actual human but this is comics we’re talking about. You’re going to have to shave off that glossy black hair if you want to get ahead in this game.
(Mystery Men Comics 011, 1940) I just really appreciate the low-effort mystique that can be generated by sitting behind a bright light in a dark room. Of course, nothing prevents a foe from shooting into the light at roughly leg-height, as Lt Drake of Naval Intelligence demonstrates in this story, so perhaps the bright light shouldn’be your only line of defense should you choose to use it.
(Mystery Men Comics 009, 1940) The Moth might just be the platonic ideal of a certain kind of super-hero. Specifically, the kind that would be equally likely to show up for three issues during the height of the Golden Age hero boom and also in a super-hero parody any time from the 60s to today. I sincerely think that if I spent an afternoon looking through every issue of normalman and What The-! and so forth that I could find (or if…
(Mystery Men Comics 010, 1940) It’s the Moth vs. the Weather Kings, the very definition of a great name wasted on some run-of-the-mill weather controlling chumps and really I’m only bringing them up to roundly condemn the wasting of such a good name on such jabronis. The only good thing about them really, is that they’ve remained unused for more than 80 years so the name is basically up for grabs.
(More Fun 062, 1940) Look at this damn nerd. He’s got a lightning cannon and a robot army and he bothered Dr Fate for a whole afternoon. Good riddance to him, I say. Raymond Rall. Ridiculous.
(More Fun Comics 062, 1940) An early iteration of the classic tale of a brain that is freed of its cranium and becomes both powerful and EVIL, originally just a man named Dexter with a skeletal system and all the organs, he then became a mysterious shadowy figure named the Crime Lord as he directed his minions toward an eventual takeover of the US. Upon being freed from his bell jar, the Crime Lord became the rapidly-expanding Brain, who similarly…